The present invention relates generally to providing tabs which may be readily clipped on and unclipped from one or more sheets of paper. More particularly, the present invention relates to a tab section and a fastener (e.g., binder clip) that enables the grouping of one or more sheets of paper.
Despite great strides and advances in electronic technology, the birth of the Internet, and continued promises of the paperless office, paper remains critical to the functioning of society and business today. Using paper is familiar, easy, reliable, and relatively inexpensive. With paper comes the need to organize and manage the growing mountains of paper better. Some of the most successful inventions in human history are tools or devices to manage paper better: Some well-known examples that quickly come to mind include the paper clip, binder clip, staple, stapler, file folder, binder, and many others.
Given a mountain of papers, some of the papers may be more important than other papers in the mountain, or groups of papers may have a different priority than other groups in the mountain. It would be very time consuming if one were to start from the beginning each time he or she were searching for a particular piece of paper. Therefore, to organize one or more sheets of paper such that specific sheets of paper may be readily identified, tabbed folders may be used. An individual may label folders to essentially provide labels for any sheets of paper contained therein. By way of example, when papers are to be separated into high priority and low priority groups, the tab portion of one folder may be labeled “high priority” and used to hold high priority papers, while the tab portion of another folder may be labeled “low priority” and used to hold low priority papers. Additional descriptions or notations pertaining to the contents of the folders may be printed or written directly onto the folders.
While the use of tabbed folders in the organization of papers is effective, the use of tabbed folders is not always desirable. Tabbed folders may be bulky, and if multiple folders are needed to organize papers, the amount of bulk added by the tabbed folders may be cumbersome. In addition, the need to open tabbed folders to view the contents of the folders may prove to be inconvenient.
Tabs or labels may be provided directly on sheets of paper to allow for the efficient filing of the sheets of paper. For example, a label may be positioned and glued over a paper clip. When the paper clip is secured to one or more sheets of paper, the label may be used to effectively label the sheets of paper when a printed card is received within the label. While such a label may be effective in allowing sheets of paper to be organized, having to remove a printed card held within the label when the text on the printed card is no longer relevant may be inefficient. Further, the label and paper clip assembly does not allow for additional notes regarding the sheets of paper held by the assembly to be made thereon.
Post-It® notes, which are available from 3M Incorporated of St. Paul, Minn., may be used to provide tabs for a sheet or sheets of paper, and are reusable. Post-it notes may be erased, as well as readily removed and reused. Despite the success of Post-it notes, there are shortcomings such as the inability to secure multiple papers together and not necessarily reliable and substantial in all circumstances. For example, Post-it notes are sometimes too easily removable, even by accident. Over time, Post-it notes may simply loose their adhesiveness.
Though a Post-it note may be positioned on a sheet of paper such that a portion of the Post-it note extends above an edge of the sheet of paper to effectively form a tab while a portion of the Post-it note that does not extend above the edge may serve to allow notes to be made thereon, the tab is relatively flimsy. Hence, the tab portion of a Post-it note used to form a tab may be accidentally bent such that any writing on the tab portion is obscured. In addition, a Post-it note may relatively easily become detached from a sheet of paper to which it is affixed, and is not arranged to secure multiple sheets of paper together.
Therefore, what is needed is a method and an apparatus which is relatively easy to reuse, and allows one or more sheets of paper to be securely tabbed. That is, what is desired is a tab arrangement which is reusable, secures one or more sheets of paper, and allows notes in addition to notations on a tab to be written thereon.